Tuesday, 7 October 2014

Should I Laugh or Cry?

Anyone who remembers my previous Mal's Allotment blog will know about the battle I waged against Edinburgh Council and our Edinburgh allotment association FEDAGA. What at first sight was a council attack on allotment holders turned out to be a plan hatched by the allotment association itself. The committeee representing over 1000 Edinburgh allotmenteers argued that if they volunteered rent increases on behalf of the members then City of Edinburgh Council would be "shamed" into providing more allotments. So they pushed for rents to be raised from £30 a decade ago to £100 this year, claiming (correctly) that this removed any subsidy by the Council. Even the 50% concession given to those on benefit or of pensionable age is now covered by rents paid by those paying the full whack. Rent inflation has been in excess of 10% every year for a decade.

So how many more plots have we got? None.

By contrast Glasgow who had the same rent but have tracked the RPI now charges £34.50 per annum for a full plot. And guess what, they got Commonwealth Games funding for hundreds of new plots!!

To add injury to insult, Edinburgh Council has cottoned on to the supplicant Allotment Association and has now suggested raising rents from £100 to £300 per year! They just want the money!

Rather late FEDAGA has cottoned on to the error of it's ways and is now appealing to the membership to support it in campaigning for a rent freeze!!!!

11 comments:

It may come to that, Sue. Now that FEDAGA is anti rises they can co-ordinate objections, first of all through their Council contacts and then by co-ordinating the 1,500 members. Nowadays even allotment holders have got email accounts, although many still prefer pen and paper!

I thought I read something about an allotment association successfully arguing against a large increase in allotment rents as it went against the Allotment Act which is supposed to provide a plot of land at a reasonable price. I could be wrong in which case a good cry might be in order.

You are quite right about the legal position Martyn, as I know from my research. The only problem is taking the Council to Court. They have a bank of lawyers they can call on and if the challenge was not successful the complainant could end up with legal costs that could bankrupt them. Also when the representative body was in agreement with the Council any individual would be foolhardy to proceed. Now that there has been a change of heart it should be possible for FEDAGA to take the council on on behalf of it's members - and a law firm might be willing to agree a reasonable fee given the force of the arguement and the legal precendence, not to mention the kudos of winning!